The White House is signaling that President Bush could sign the hotly contested and long overdue war funding bill if the benefit transferability provision is added to the 10-year, $52 billion improvement to GI Bill college benefits proposed by Democrats and many Republicans.

"It's like the Yogi Berra story: 'I don't like that restaurant. Besides, the portions aren't large enough,"' House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., said in an interview. "They don't like it, but they want more."

"It's not a bad idea," Pelosi added. "It just costs money."

A Democratic leadership aide, who was granted anonymity in order to speak freely, said Democrats were unlikely to yield to the White House demands.

"There is a great deal of reluctance to increase the cost of the bill to accommodate the president when he is otherwise complaining that we're spending too much," the aide said.

The imbroglio over the GI Bill is the biggest remaining hurdle to getting Bush's pending $178 billion war funding requests enacted. He has vowed to veto any measure exceeding his request, but the new veterans program is extraordinarily popular, and a veto might be difficult to sustain. That's one reason why White House representatives are trying to negotiate a compromise.

Democratic leaders are likely to dump most other domestic add-ons opposed by Bush, despite a sweeping vote in the Senate last month to add significant new domestic spending to the measure.

In addition, House Democratic leaders are to drop efforts to extend unemployment benefits, House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, D-Md., said Wednesday.

Under an unusual procedural setup, it's up to the House to vote next on the war funding bill, while also significantly scaling back a companion package of additional spending passed by the Senate last month.

In addition to the GI Bill benefits and an extension of unemployment insurance, the Senate added more than $10 billion for various other domestic programs, including heating subsidies for the poor, wildfire fighting, road and bridge repair, and health research. The Senate vote was a surprising 75-22, but the result dismayed House leaders, who are seeking to give Bush a bill he will sign.

The addition sought by Bush could cost $2 billion a year, or $20 billion to $25 billion over a decade, assuming the right to transfer benefits to family members involves the more generous benefits proposed by Democrats. The Democratic GI Bill, sponsored by Sen. Jim Webb, D-Va., is aimed at guaranteeing returning Iraq war veterans the equivalent of a four-year education at a public university.

A senior White House official said Wednesday that adding Bush's benefits transfer plan to the GI Bill provision wouldn't guarantee a presidential signature, but that it could prove to be an important element to reaching an agreement.

The two sides also are wrangling over a plan in both the House and Senate bills that would block new Bush administration rules designed to cut spending on Medicaid health care for the poor and disabled by $13 billion over the next five years.

Meanwhile, moderate to conservative Democrats continue to worry that the new veterans' benefits package will pass in violation of pay-as-you-go rules that are supposed to require that new federal benefits programs are "paid for" with new revenues or spending cuts elsewhere in the budget.

Last month, House Democrats used a one-half of a percentage point increase in tax rates on wealthy taxpayers to finance the new benefits, but the Senate rejected the idea.

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